SHEVCHUK I. I. The quantitative aspect of the history of science

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     In Belarus scientific biography studies have achieved certain progress in recent decades. As a rule, this is reflected primarily in the monographic studies devoted to P.O. Bobrovsky, M.V. Dovnar-Zapolsky, V.M. Ignatovskii, V.I. Picheta, J.N. Marash etc. This paper focuses on one historian – Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor M.P. Kоstiuk. The choice is due to the fact that he is the Chief Researcher of the Institute of History of NAS of Belarus and the only historian Academician of the country. In this case in the focus of attention is only one quantitative aspect of the totality, namely publication activity of the scientist. In such a perspective the activities of the researchers have not previously been considered in the Belarusian historiography The appearance of the paper is determined by the replicated in Belarusian periodicals over the years of information about M. Kostiuk’s life and work generally issued to his anniversary dates. They contain only declarative statements about the ever-growing number of the Academician publications, without specifying sources of information. It is noteworthy, that such publications began to appear only on the 60th anniversary of M.P. Kоstiuk after removing him from his post of Director of the Institute of History of NAS of Belarus on 25 November 1999. Since 2000, 27 doctors and candidates of sciences, 6 people without a scientific degree 62 times participated in the creation of two brochures and the 28 articles of the anniversary character, where exclusively non-critical and, at times inconsistent, referring to the data given in them, illuminated the life way of the Academician. This gives reason to consider the situation as a kind of response from a certain academic group on the decision of the Presidium of NAS of Belarus. Guided by purely scientific interests, the author of the article makes an attempt to carry out a study of the real state of affairs. Analysis of the published data (the largest volume of one journal article is 0,28 printed sheet , the rest – from 0.03 to 0.26 printed sheet ), the archival materials, the bibliographic publications and the data posted on the Internet allowed  the author to come to the conclusion about the baseless allegations contained in the anniversary publications. In the paper there is evaluated the publication activity of the Academician in dynamics in general and by separate types (monographs, articles in journals and newspapers, conference proceedings) as well as by genre, among which more attention is paid to historiographical one. There is proved significant overestimation of the total number of publications (250, really – 159), including scientific (250, really – about 67). Attention is drawn to the fact that this approach to the coverage of the issue remained beyond.

Key words: science, history of science, publication, quantity, academician, professor, historical science, monograph, article, biography, bibliography, dissertation, historiography, institute.